Seeing the Lighter Side

Rebecca Bowyer on Books, Parenting and Writing

Breast may be best but at least bottles won’t kill your baby these days

by

breast is best

There is evidence that fifty-four per cent of babies who are bottle fed die. Oh wait, no, that was seventeenth century Britain.

Research indicates that out of 132 orphans who were bottle fed, only five survived. Um, no, that was eighteenth century France.

Oh, that’s right, this is the year 2013. Feeding babies properly manufactured and prepared formula, from a bottle, doesn’t tend to kill them.

“But BREAST IS BEST!” I hear you say. Yes, it certainly is, and so is exercising regularly, not watching any television in the first year of life, avoiding artificial colours and flavours, eating organic, vegetarian, unprocessed food, wearing natural fibers, using renewable energy and avoiding anything that may be carcinogenic (alcohol, smoking, the sun, donuts, processed meat, car pollution, plastic food containers, french fries, crackers, etc…).

Okay, so breast is best, you’ve convinced me. Perhaps we could do what our noble ancestors did when a mother couldn’t or wouldn’t breastfeed her own child: reintroduce wetnursing.

Wetnursing was very trendy in the seventeenth century among wealthy mums who allegedly complained that breastfeeding ruined the figure, stained their clothes and interfered with their social life (sound familiar?). Unfortunately the wetnurses didn’t necessarily take such good care of the babies.

One countess Elizabeth Clinton sent away eighteen of her children to be wetnursed: only one of them survived. Funnily enough, the decline of professional wetnursing in the second half of the nineteenth century correlated neatly with the improvement of artificial milk for babies.

Given there was a fair to good chance your baby would die if you didn’t breastfeed it back then, it was probably fair enough that motherswho chose not to breastfeed because they wanted to retain their youthful figure were subjected to much criticism (in Sweden they were fined by the government).

But today? In Australia? Let’s put it in perspective. Our infant mortality rate in 2012 was 4.55 per 1000 births, which means that more than 99.5% of babies born in Australia now live beyond their first birthday.

At the end of the nineteenth century the Australian infant mortality rate was over 100 per 1000 births. That means there was about a 1 in 10 chance your baby would die before you got a chance to put a candle on its first birthday cake.

I breastfed my first son for sixteen months. Why? Because it worked for both of us. He took to feeding with great gusto and my body was happy to oblige with an oversupply of milk.

My second son started out well with breastfeeding but at some point around four months decided he’d had enough of this caper and would just yell and come off the breast repeatedly. Every feed was a struggle, but struggle we did until he was five months old, I’d tried everything and we’d both just had enough. From then, he drank formula from a bottle during the day and breastfed at night (when he didn’t fight me) for another few weeks. Five months on, he’s fully bottle fed and we’re both happy and thriving.

Breastfeeding is a wonderful thing if it works out for both mother and baby. It’s convenient, cheap and healthy. Sometimes, though, it’s not possible and there are too many Mums who are criticised, or feel guilty, for not breastfeeding “long enough”.

Instead of putting yet another burden on new Mums, let’s celebrate the fact that we now have a really great back-up if breastfeeding doesn’t work. Let’s be excited that we have the luxury of nitpicking over the question of whether formula has any negative effects on child development: one study suggests exclusively breastfed babies could be more likely to develop nut allergies; another study links formula feeding in infancy to obesity in later life (though I suspect that obesity in later life also has a strong correlation to excessive consumption of refined sugar and saturated fat when baby has grown up and left home and mum can no longer supervise the weekly shopping).

Sure, breast is best but compared to the “good old days” bottles have never been safer.

Happy, healthy mums and babies are the best thing of all.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. I breastfed both my kids but this hysteria around breast vs bottle is bloody ridiculous. Perspective, seriously. We are the luckiest generation of women in all of human history to have such choices available to us regarding the care of our children – choices that have reduced the infant mortality rate substantially, in ways that mean most of us will see our children survive early infant hood.

  2. What a great post – really helps put it all in perspective. I tried breastfeeding both my babies but found it really made me run down and seriously ill (even hospitalised when Miss 18 was 4 months old!) … thankful we had the option of bottle feeding. And mother and babies thrived 🙂

    Visiting today from #teamIBOT xxx

  3. I just got tears in my eyes. I also had to stop breast feeding at 5 months. I JUST wrote about it now that he is 18 months. I LOVED hearing the history of this, and WISH so much that I could have had a post to read like this when I was in the thick of it. Thank you for helping to take pressure off new mums. AMAZING!

  5. I really don’t understand why people get so hung up on it all. I think that every mum and baby combination is different and that they are the only ones that can make the right decision for them. Yes, breast is best but only if you can make it work for you. I was lucky and both of my girls easily breastfed for a really long time and were very happy chubby bubbies. But so were their bottle fed friends.

    • Yes, so long as mums and bubs are doing what’s best, on balance, for both of them we should just leave them alone!

  6. I’m not a mum so I know next to nothing about this subject but I found this a really interesting post…..I am a bit of a history buff so it’s interesting to know the then and now perspective 🙂

    • It is interesting to get that perspective – we’re not exactly the first generation to bring up children after all!

  8. It’s a contentious topic. I think both choices should be supported- but I also think both choices should be educated. Formula has come a long way and both my kids have had it (one exclusively, one as top ups) but to be honest, my first was formula fed before I had much knowledge in the area. Formula feeding is not risk free and I do think it’s important to acknowledge that when making a decision on how to feed. This even applies to developed countries. Have a look at the recommendations from SIDS and Kids, for example- http://www.sidsandkids.org/wp-content/uploads/SIDS040-J-Breastfeeding-Info-Statement-LR2.pdf This gives a good summary of the studies and meta-analysis used to determine their advice to new parents. There are other well documented risks also- from relatively minor issues like higher incidence of ear infections or gastro (both of which can potentially be serious but are usually well controlled in developed countries) to potentially serious ones like necrotising enterocolitis in neonates. I think often parents don’t know much about either option- I certainly didn’t when I had my first daughter. Like anything- education is key. It helps us make a balanced risk assessment, taking into account our circumstances and what will suit our families as well as any potential other issues.
    Sorry for the novel- very interesting piece though!

    • I don’t think anything is risk-free where babies are concerned. I think it makes sense on a whole lot of levels to breastfeed where possible. I’m just really glad we have an alternative that’s much safer than it used to be.

  9. Sorry, I’m still stuck on the fact that she had 18 babies and only one survived. Did she not think something was up with the wet nurse after the first few passed away? Blows my mind. Great post as per usual, Bec.

    • I know. That one absolutely blew my mind. a) being pregnant & giving birth 18 times b) having 17 babies die!